Matt Kistler homepage. Matthew Kistler An Unexpectedly Swift Rise in the Cosmic GRB Rate
Do gamma-ray bursts trace the history of cosmic star formation?
The association of (long) GRBs with supernovae (the death blows of massive stars) naturally suggests that the cosmic GRB rate should trace the star formation history. This work, completed with Hasan Yuksel, John Beacom, and Kris Stanek, examines the GRBs recently discovered by the Swift satellite with confirmed redshifts. We found that these curious phenomena do not seem to follow the simplest assumption, instead finding that the GRB rate appears to be ~4 times higher at z~4 than expected. We explore several different explanations for this effect, including some speculative, yet interesting, scenarios.
